Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend has raised an important issue. Obviously, as he will appreciate, it is important that we ensure, first, that patients get access to cost-effective innovative medicines, but at a price that is fair and makes best use of NHS resources. That is the independent system that we have through the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, which reviews the evidence. I understand that Biogen has submitted a revised submission to NICE in relation to Spinraza and that a meeting of NICE’s independent appraisal committee took place early in March to consider its recommendations. It is clear that everyone at the Department of Health and Social Care and in NICE recognises the significance of this drug, but we need to ensure that the decision taken is made on the basis of the clinical aspects, together with cost-effectiveness. That is what NICE will do in looking at the new offer.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

When Melrose Industries took over GKN last year, it promised Ministers that it would back British manufacturing and not reduce the company’s defence capacity without the Government’s permission. Last week, GKN announced that it intended to close the Kings Norton plant, which makes windscreens for military and civilian aircraft. Will the Prime Minister tell GKN that the Government expect the company to abide by both the spirit and the letter of the undertakings given by Melrose last year?

[The Prime Minister]

I was not aware of the particular issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised. If I may, I will look into it and respond to him in writing.

European Council

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Monday 25th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As I said earlier, I recognise the collective responsibility we have across this House in relation to the failure so far to get an agreement for a deal. I continue to believe that it is important to get agreement to a deal so that we can deliver Brexit in time.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

The Prime Minister has still not answered the question that was put to her quite a long time ago by my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). She was not asked whether she approved of Britain being part of a customs union with the EU after Brexit. What she was asked was whether, if this House agreed through indicative votes to go for that option, she would abide by that decision and seek to negotiate that with the European Union. Will she now answer that question?

[The Prime Minister]

I answered the question about the Government’s position in relation to a commitment on the indicative votes in the statement that I gave and in the questions that followed.

Military Action Overseas: Parliamentary Approval

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Tuesday 17th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

That would not be the upshot of the motion before the House today, but it could be the upshot of a war powers Act of the type suggested by the Leader of the Opposition.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

If consulting Parliament in advance of this military action against the Syrian regime would inevitably have compromised operational details and intelligence in the way the Prime Minister suggests, what was it about the debate that took place in 2013 on possible military action in Syria that would have compromised the same details had the vote gone the other way?

[The Prime Minister]

There was a rather different set of circumstances in 2013, when that vote was taken by the House.

Syria

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Monday 16th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I sympathise with my hon. Friend’s comments. The Leader of the Opposition says that he wants United Nations support for action, but I believe that even when it supported action in Syria against Daesh, the Leader of the Opposition opposed that.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Recognising that there can be circumstances that preclude a Government from consulting Parliament before taking military action, does the Prime Minister agree that the default position, as per convention, is that Parliament should be consulted in advance—not on operational details, but on the strategy within which those operational details fit? Nothing that she has said so far convinces me that on this occasion there was not the time or opportunity to consult this House. In relation to the future strategy, given that the action was taken to limit further humanitarian catastrophe, what action does the Prime Minister believe that Britain should take? How will it garner international support to prevent the loss of civilian lives in Idlib on the scale of the loss of life in Aleppo and eastern Ghouta?

[The Prime Minister]

As I have said to others, I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks at the position set out in the 2016 written ministerial statement about Government action versus parliamentary debate. We have set out very clearly that we will be working with international partners in a number of ways. We have worked with France on the international partnership to ensure that chemical weapons cannot be used with impunity, which has now been established, and through the United Nations and in other forums.

Prime Minister

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister

- Hansard -

My hon. Friend is right: the five-year plan does include that proposal for more local input in care at a local level. It is absolutely right that in looking at, for example, the future of minor injuries units, local people are considered and local concerns taken into account. I understand that there is due to be a meeting in Ely later this month to consider this. I hope that she and her constituents will be able to make their views known at that meeting.

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)

- Hansard - - Excerpts

Q7. Tomorrow I will be helping to launch a programme at the engineering company ADI Group in my constituency to boost the interest of 14 to 16-year-olds in engineering skills. No doubt the Prime Minister would like to join me in congratulating ADI Group, but will she take it from me that her words of congratulation would mean rather more if they were not accompanied by cuts of between 30% and 50% in apprenticeships funding—a programme that the Institute of the Motor Industry has described as a “car crash”? (906345)

The Prime Minister

- Hansard -

I am of course happy to commend the company that the hon. Gentleman has referred to. Of course, the west midlands is an important driver in terms of engineering skills in this country. But I simply do not recognise the situation that he has set out in relation to apprenticeships. We have seen 2 million apprenticeships created over the last six years, and we are committed as a Government to seeing more apprenticeships being created. That is giving young people, like the young people I met when I went to Jaguar Land Rover, opportunities to learn a skill to get into a job, to get into the workplace, and to get on where their talents will take them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right: the five-year plan does include that proposal for more local input in care at a local level. It is absolutely right that in looking at, for example, the future of minor injuries units, local people are considered and local concerns taken into account. I understand that there is due to be a meeting in Ely later this month to consider this. I hope that she and her constituents will be able to make their views known at that meeting.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Q7. Tomorrow I will be helping to launch a programme at the engineering company ADI Group in my constituency to boost the interest of 14 to 16-year-olds in engineering skills. No doubt the Prime Minister would like to join me in congratulating ADI Group, but will she take it from me that her words of congratulation would mean rather more if they were not accompanied by cuts of between 30% and 50% in apprenticeships funding—a programme that the Institute of the Motor Industry has described as a “car crash”?

[The Prime Minister]

I am of course happy to commend the company that the hon. Gentleman has referred to. Of course, the west midlands is an important driver in terms of engineering skills in this country. But I simply do not recognise the situation that he has set out in relation to apprenticeships. We have seen 2 million apprenticeships created over the last six years, and we are committed as a Government to seeing more apprenticeships being created. That is giving young people, like the young people I met when I went to Jaguar Land Rover, opportunities to learn a skill to get into a job, to get into the workplace, and to get on where their talents will take them.

Border Force Budget 2016-17

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

1st reading: House of Commons
Wednesday 20th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I say to the hon. Gentleman that, of course, in terms of border security and stopping people crossing the border, what is important is not just that we have a border control, as we do by not being a member of the Schengen border-free zone, but that information is exchanged between the parties when that is available. That is exactly what we are working on to ensure that information is available at our borders when we want to be able to stop people.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

May I put it to the Home Secretary that I do not think that she has yet fully answered the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee about 100% checks on trucks? I accept the issue about flexibility, as we might have different situations in different places, but does she accept that there is genuine concern about security in ports up and down the country? How is the cumulative cut to the revenue budget of the Border Force compatible with providing the necessary level of security?

[Mrs May]

On that last point, I must say to the Labour party, as we have said before regarding a number of other areas, that it is about not how much money we have, but how we spend it. It is about ensuring that we are using money as effectively and efficiently as possible. Ensuring that we have an operating mandate that means that 100% checks on individuals are undertaken at primary checkpoints is something that this Government have introduced and that the previous Labour Government failed to do. All the trucks going through the juxtaposed controls are indeed screened.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Monday 22nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Again, I extend congratulations and welcome the work of the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner in reducing crime in Lincolnshire. It is not the only area where crime has fallen, but the fall in Lincolnshire is particularly significant.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Given the Home Secretary’s reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), has she seen the statement from the Northamptonshire police and crime commissioner to his police and crime panel on 2 February in which he says of the new funding formula:

“It is expected that this will transfer funding from the urban areas to more rural areas and Northamptonshire may benefit”?

Does that reflect Government policy, or is he just letting the cat out of the bag?

[Mrs May]

As I would have thought the hon. Gentleman would be aware, we have clearly said that the funding formula changes that we were proposing before Christmas are not going ahead. We are pausing that process and looking again at how we can develop a funding formula that reflects needs. If the hon. Gentleman looks at police forces across England and Wales, he will see that everybody—including the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, who is sitting next to him—has been very clear that the funding formula needs to change.

Refugee Crisis in Europe

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Tuesday 8th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but there are alternative routes for those who are looking for family reunion here in the UK. Under current family reunion provisions within the immigration rules, those who are granted asylum or humanitarian protection in the UK can sponsor immediate family members to join them here. We have arrangements in place that are helpful to those who wish to join family here in the UK.

I want to make another point about the perilous journey. An important point was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) yesterday. He said:

“If we are genuinely to help refugees, this cannot simply be about helping the fittest, the fastest and those most able to get to western Europe. We must help those who are left behind in the camps, who are sometimes the most vulnerable.”—[Official Report, 7 September 2015; Vol. 599, c. 34.]

Indeed, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper) has made that point herself—she made it on one occasion when we discussed the issue last year. She said:

“There has always been cross-party agreement that the majority of refugees should be supported in the region”.—[Official Report, 29 January 2014; Vol. 574, c. 881.]

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary is clearly right about Britain’s record, both on reaching 0.7% and on the camps in Syria and surrounding areas. However, she will know that there is still a crisis of funding in those areas. The World Food Programme, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and others are talking about the strains on their resources to deal not only with the Syrian crisis, but with other crises. The Government have decided that the refugee resettlement programme on which they are embarking will come from the overseas aid budget. I understand the reasons for that, but has there been an assessment of the impact that funding it in that way will have on other programmes elsewhere?

[Mrs May]

The hon. Gentleman is correct that the United Nations is looking at how to reach the funding it requires to provide support. As he says, there has been an impact on the World Food Programme. Yesterday, I was able to speak to Stephen O’Brien, who a few months ago took up his new role in the UN. He has been spending some considerable time on the issue and talking to potential donor countries. He is looking actively at how it is possible to increase that funding. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), has alerted me to the fact that the UN General Assembly will focus on the issue in the not-too-distant future. The UK has a commitment to 0.7%. Because of our growing economy, that aid budget is increasing—it is not the case that there is simply one pot of money that is being distributed. We are seeing an increase because of that growth in the economy, because the target that we have set and reached is based on a percentage of national wealth rather than on a specific figure.

I said in response to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Hertfordshire (Sir Oliver Heald) a couple of minutes ago that I would comment on the issue of criminality. Our work pits us against the callous criminal gangs that exploit the suffering of vulnerable people by selling them false hope. They are taking their life savings in exchange for a place in a rickety vessel, or cramped in the back of an ill-ventilated lorry. The tragic death toll in the Mediterranean—not just in recent weeks, but over the past two years—illustrates the great risks people are running and the vile disregard for human life of the gangs who encourage them, and so do appalling cases such as the 71 bodies found abandoned and decomposing last month in the back of a lorry on an Austrian motorway.

We have seen people taking dangerous risks in their attempts to cross not only the Mediterranean but the English channel. That is why we are working—not just alone but with our international partners—to smash these criminal gangs and break their disgusting trade. In Calais, the joint declaration I signed on 20 August with Bernard Cazeneuve, the French Interior Minister, cements and builds on the close working relationship of our two Governments. It builds on the important collaboration between our law enforcement agencies and establishes a joint gold command structure ensuring that UK and French officers work hand in hand, sharing intelligence and reporting jointly on a monthly basis to both me and Mr Cazeneuve.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Monday 10th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

There has been considerable contact on this matter. My right hon. Friend the policing Minister met representatives of the Police Federation of England and Wales to discuss any issues that they wished to raise about the secondment of officers to work alongside the PSNI to police the G8 conference. I am pleased to say that I have met a small number of police officers who will be giving mutual aid to Northern Ireland and who were very complimentary about the training course they have undergone to do that work.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

9. What assessment she has made of increases in waiting times for visa decisions.

Abu Qatada

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Tuesday 17th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

I am not in a position to predict what will emerge from the deliberations that will take place during the three days in Brighton, but I can assure my hon. Friend that—as I said earlier—the Prime Minister in a speech earlier this year clearly defined the areas in which we felt that it was necessary to work with other countries on reform of the European Court, and I have every expectation that they will be addressed at the conference this week.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

May I again draw hon. Members’ attention to the forthcoming entry in the register? The Home Secretary may be aware that the all-party group on Jordan was also in Amman last week. I believe that it was on the same day as the Home Secretary spoke to the Jordanian Prime Minister that we were able briefly to raise the Abu Qatada issue with him, explaining the great public concern in the UK about it. I must agree that he emphasised at that time that Jordan wished to do what it could to facilitate the deportation and to make progress on human rights. It is also important to put on the record today that when we spoke to the Jordanians—I am sure that the Home Secretary will do this as well—we said that we in no way wish them to lighten up on human rights standards in their country; we want them to continue the progress they are making towards political reform, constitutional reform and human rights.

[Mrs May]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. As I have said, the Jordanian Government have been very helpful in our discussions about Abu Qatada. What is significant is that the way in which the Jordanian system operates today is different from the portrayal given by the European Court; a significant number of changes have taken place. Indeed, when I was in Jordan, everything that people were saying to me, both at Government level and through officials and others, was that they see Jordan continuing to move forward on this issue of human rights.

Gangs and Youth Violence

Debate between Theresa May and Richard Burden

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs May]

Voluntary mentoring of individuals can have an incredibly important role to play in tackling both gang membership and youth violence. There are many projects out there in which voluntary and charitable groups provide necessary support to families that helps them to bring up their children in a way that prevents them from going down the route of gang violence. I commend the project that my hon. Friend mentions. I am sure that it is doing excellent work in his constituency, as it does elsewhere in the country.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

The Home Secretary has on several occasions emphasised the importance of partnership working between the statutory agencies and the voluntary sector, not only to divert young people from joining gangs—I hope that we do not see all young people as a potential problem—but to bring out the talents that they have inside them. Even if the right hon. Lady does not like what Opposition Members are saying about resources, does she accept that youth workers and voluntary groups are also saying that the resources are not enough? What assurances can she give them, if not us, that she is listening to them?

[Mrs May]

Of course the vast majority of young people are not involved in gang membership and violence. We should recognise that all too often the only stories that people read about young people are bad stories, not good ones. The House should perhaps do more to recognise that the vast majority of young people do not get involved in this sort of activity.

I have seen across the country that what makes a difference is how you spend the money that is available, targeting those who are most in need, and targeting money effectively. Sadly, over the years money has been spent that has not led to a change. We want to change young people’s lives.